Commentary

Canadian farmers also hit by heat, low rainfall

Commentary: Consumer food prices rising because of drought

By

BillMann

VANCOUVER, B.C. (MarketWatch) — The images this drought-stricken summer are all too familiar on U.S. TV news: Stunted ears of corn, bone-dry livestock ponds. But similar images have also been emerging all summer from Canadian farms.

Americans may think that if you head north across the border this summer, the climate will be cooler. They’d be mistaken. It gets hot in Canada in normal summers, and no more so than this year. But this year, it’s also dry, just like in much of the U.S.

Record-setting temperatures combined with low rainfall this summer are seriously affecting agriculture in many areas of Canada, a country where climate change is by and large a settled issue.

With much of central and eastern Canada experiencing extreme heat and below-average rainfall this summer, Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips says, “It’s a drought, no question about it.”

Record-setting high temperatures this summer across Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces coupled with some of the lowest rainfall on record means you now see the same kind of miniature corn and dessicated crops and soil on Canadian newscasts that Americans are seeing almost nightly on the evening news.

“It’s devastating,” one Ontario farmer told CBC News recently. “It’s the worst it’s ever been. The yield will be half of what it normally should be.” Southeastern Ontario’s productive farm belt has been especially hard-hit this summer.

Food prices in Canada will rise even more, analysts say, because of the double-drought whammy in both Canada and the U.S., which is having its hottest summer on record. Store prices have already risen 4% in Canada markets because of the U.S. drought, and the Canadian drought will add a few cents more, farm analysts say.

According to Statistics Canada, Canada ranks seventh in the world in the amount of arable land. Oil, potash, and timber aren’t the only Canadian commodities. Farming is big business across Canada, especially in the south.

Out in agriculture-rich western Canada, it’s hot, but fortunately, there’s been more rain, and farmers aren’t worried like they are back east. Many towns in Saskatchewan, Canada’s wheat basket, had their highest temperatures ever, Saskatoon recently hitting 90 (Fahrenheit). It’s the same thing next door in Manitoba, which hit 93 recently. On one day alone this summer, 14 Manitoba cities recorded their highest temperatures ever. Fountains in city parks have a lot of kids playing this summer.

But back East, where the price of locally grown Canadian corn has gone up 30 % in recent weeks, things are grim.

Even my vacation destination, Nova Scotia’s lush Annapolis Valley, with some of Canada’s richest agricultural soil, has been hit hard — the province got only 20% of its normal rainfall in July, following two months of subnormal precipitation. “The melons here are a lot smaller this year,” reports a friend in Halifax. Nova Scotia’s produce stands are normally a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables. Not so much this summer.

Forest fires have also plagued Quebec, and the ongoing drought has damaged that French-speaking province’s important apple crop, one of Quebec’s major exports. That crop, centered in Quebec’s Eastern Townships southeast of Montreal near the U.S. border, is expected to have a mediocre yield this year.

Malcolm Allen, the agriculture critic for the country’s opposition party, the NDP, said recently that it’s too late for many Ontario grain growers to salvage anything this growing season.

“The crops are literally burned off the land,” he said. He called on Ottawa to take a more active role helping Eastern Canada’s drought-stricken farmers.

But, somewhat surprisingly, neither the farmers nor the Ontario government are asking for help — yet. The CEO of the Grain Farmers of Ontario said 80% of Ontario farmers are protected with crop insurance, which will lessen the financial impact. But damage claims won’t be tallied up until later this year, and they will seriously dent. insurers’ bottom lines.

Canadian food prices are already higher than in the U.S. One much-publicized story here a few weeks ago showed a C$11 head of iceberg lettuce in the remote northern outpost of Iqaluit, capital of the territory of Nunavut. Adding Canada’s drought damage will escalate them even further as snows begin to fall..

Canada’s eponymous food chain Tim Hortons, following warnings from Toronto-based food packaging giant Maple Leaf Foods Inc. that drought conditions will inflate food prices well into next year and maybe beyond, boosted the price of its muffins a nickel and its sandwiches a dime just last week.

Hortons didn't raise the price of its sacramental coffee, however. That could cause civil unrest here in Canada.

Even here in temperate, cool Vancouver, an unusual “heat wave” caused temperatures to “soar” Sunday — to 83 Fahrenheit. For Vancouver, that’s toasty, and people were complaining about the heat. Floods have hit many parts of northern British Columbia recently, causing mudslides and property damage.

But there’s an upside to the hot, dry summer hitting down south in the U.S.: Increased tourism to Canada’s Maritime Provinces.

“Hot U.S. Tourists Flock to Nova Scotia’s Cool Shores,” read a recent headline at the Canadian Broadcast Corp.’s website. The lovely and pleasant provincial capital of Halifax, where high temperatures are generally in the 70s in August, has become an American tourism hot spot this summer..

But here’s a cavaet from someone who’s vacationed in Nova Scotia often and loves Halifax: Temperatures in the 70s don’t feel that great when the humidity climbs above 80%, which it’s been known to do in Nova Scotia — for days on end.

We experienced two weeks of unrelenting humidity in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley one summer, which almost made it seem like we were vacationing in Manila.

But, as is the case in foggy San Francisco in the summer, American tourists in Nova Scotia — normally few in number — can always head to the ocean for relief even on muggy summer days. A visit to one of Nova Scotia’s windy beaches on the North Atlantic requires a windbreaker, NOT a swimsuit. It’s like San Francisco East.

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